


Broken scrap

by 351303585



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-04
Updated: 2015-11-02
Packaged: 2018-04-12 22:45:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4497576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/351303585/pseuds/351303585
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Capable and Slit use each other to cope with life after the events of Fury Road. Everyone is kind of dysfunctional. I've got a lot of ideas, we'll see where they lead. My first ever fanfic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first ever fanfic! Any feedback is much appreciated. Also, english is my second language but I hope it's readable.

Slit awoke in a large stone chamber, the walls the colour of rust. Underneath him and around him was sand, but not sand. His body felt as if it was floating in mothers milk. He was awakening glorious! Triumphant! After his sacrifice in the pursuit of the wives he had been allowed passage through the shiny gates, casting his half-life aside for an eternity of mcfeasting with all those chrome who had fallen before him! 

He wondered if the traitoring Nux also fell during the wild hunt towards the Citadel. Seing Nux atop the stolen War Rig had set something askew in Slit’s chest. The cylinders of his internal engine were warped and friction had built up destructive energy now ready to be unleashed upon the mediocre, skinny, driver. In this chrome afterlife all debts would be settled, and Nux brutalized into submission. Nux would be his again. 

Capable watched the patched up war boy. After being prioritized by the organics for weeks, he was parts stiched together rather than a single entity, but the burns had healed better than anyone could hope for, she had been told. She wasn’t sure what she had been hoping for. Sometimes she wanted him to die in his sleep, sometimes she wanted to kill him. Now he was waking up, and she would see how much of Nux there was in him. 

None questioned her project. The other sisters might have, but they were treading their own crooked roads to recovery. She wished she could see hers clearly, like the Dag who spent all her time in the gardens, making life.

Now Slit saw her. A breeder! She was leaning against the wall at the far side of the chamber, watching him with crossed arms. His breath caught in his throat, and through coughs he felt that his arms were strapped to the bed. The woman had hair the colour of blood and fire and her face was the kind of crazy some war boys had before they turned proper hard. She must be dead too, living out her afterlife belonging to war boys instead of god men. Slit smiled as only he could, his face splitting into a savage masque.

“Come here shiny, shiny, come to Slit” he called to the breeder. His voice sounded different as if it had rusted during his sleep. Wearing her silent madness that nevertheless was so obvious it screamed to Slit, the breeder crossed the room. The war boys must have broken her with their games already, Slit thought. There would be no fight left in her. 

“You burned, but you survived”, the shiny said. “Of all the ones who burned, you survived.”

So he had survived the crash, Slit thought, this breeder had to be returned to the Immortan. 

“Whatya mean survived? Let me go and I will return you to the Immortan, little shiny”, Slit croaked. This at last provoked a visible reaction in the shiny. Her eyes seemed to darken when she hunkered down, lowering her face to his before whispering “The Immortan is dead” with a still smile. She had thought this would be the moment of her redemption. But while seeing fear in the war boys eyes did provide some sort of comfort, his bewilderment also reminded her of Nux. She had to keep herself from embracing and consoling him. She wanted to break him and fix him at the same time. The disappointment felt like the moment Cheeto had thrown herself from the ledge, crashing into the rock below, mixing with the water. A free fall to nothing. Capable made a choice.

“I don’t care anymore”, she said and removed the straps restraining him, before sitting down on the bed. This probably wasn’t the way to recovery after her life as a wife, but she didn’t care. If this war boy with his violent ways could make her feel anything at all, it was better than the gaping hole in her chest. Slit rose slowly to a seated position, carefully working some movement back into his arms and legs. He wasn’t sure what was going on, if the woman was crazy or just lying, but he was hungry for her. “You have no owner, no protector. You are a scrap in the wasteland, and I’m claiming.” 

Despite his words he wasn’t actually sure if he could touch her without penalty. He raised a dirty hand to her cheek, stroking it slowly with his callused thumb. When nothing more happened than her eyes meeting his, no violent response to his approach, his attentive expression was replaced with a hungry grin. His hand moved on to the back of her head, tangling his fingers into her hair. The touch was almost tender before his hand curled into a fist, trapping her in his grip. Capable didn’t fight the treatment.

Slit was amazed. War boys was never so doctile, nor so easy to control.

Her eyes were watering when he leaned into her neck and smelled the clean, sweet scent. The breeders were stranger than anything Slit had ever seen, even leaking aqua cola from their faces. He wanted to see what other things she could do, and bit down into the side of her neck, right where Larry and Barry had been eating away at Nux. The thought of his driver made his grip of Capable’s hair loosen and his bite turn soft. He didn’t understand what was happening to him when he leaned into Capable, his head filled with anger, hunger and memories of Nux.

Capable had been prepared for anything but this. How could she fight him when he fell into her embrace like a pup? He hid his face in her fussy hair, and she carefully put her hands on the back of his head.

“What is wrong with you? Is this a war boy going soft?”, she asked, mostly to herself. Slit already knew he was a failure, an engine sputtering but failing to crank. Anger and shame, two very familiar emotions, exploded in unison inside Slit. He was going to show his high octane to this shiny. He lifted her roughly, putting her legs around his waist. He pinned her to the stone wall beside the bed.

“Lancers have more crazy than drivers. ‘M not soft”, he hissed menacingly info her ear. The hairs on her neck rose under his breath. Her breathing was shallow now, and her pussy was getting wet. She leaned in and kissed Slit’s scarred lips. 

They opened their mouths to each other, drinking in the other’s desperation. When their tongues touched, Capable felt the split tip of Slit’s. She knew there were animals in the wasteland with tongues like that but didn’t know some humans had it too. Nux hadn’t, she remembered and felt a sting of sadness and longing. She purged her mind from the thoughts of Nux, filling it instead with ideas of what a split tongue could do. 

Slit had never experienced anything like this before. He pressed the shiny breeder to his chest and threw her onto the bed, pinning her down with his body. He grabbed both her hands in one of his, holding them fixed over her head. He let his other hand move down to her breasts, tearing away the fabric covering them. He wasn’t sure what was happening, this was nothing like rutting with war boys, but his instincts urged him on. He cupped one of her tits while he stroked the nipple with his thumb. He looked up at her and she met his gaze through half-closed eyes. Slit returned to her tits, licking and nibbling Capable’s other nipple, making her moan in pleasure. He had never been this revved up before.

“Let me go and I’ll show you Valhalla”, Capable whispered hoarsly above him. Horny and confused, Slit actually did what he was told. She pushed him down beside her and grabbed one of his hands. “This is where you fit into me”, she said as she pushed two of his fingers into the wet slit of her outer labia. Slit had never been naturally good at taking instructions. He took his free hand and with a vicious lizard-grin grabbed her throat tightly while entering her with two fingers. He could see that she was finally frightened of him, and a sense of calm settled into him. Capable couldn’t alert her guards in this state, and the feeling of losing all control both frightened and thrilled her. Slit put a third finger into her while rubbing her clit, enjoying his new plaything. He released her throat, and Capable resumed her breathing, gasping for air. He had never been allowed his own ride, but now he was steering one of the breeders. 

Capable pulled his pants down over his narrow hips and started to stroke his cock. Her soft touch was nothing like he had ever felt before. With war boys was it was all fight, the young men constantly trying to bend each other into submission. Now Capable guided him to her, rubbing herself with his cock while soaking him with her wetness. She was getting close to climax when Slit ran out of patience. He entered her brutally, but Capable didn’t care, she melted in pleasure as he fucked the confusion from both their minds. His world had fallen to scraps but this he knew.

She was so shiny, so chrome before him. He didn’t know softness could rev him up like this. He grabbed her tits again and pinched her nipples while pushing deeper into her. He leaned down to her face, biting her lip. She pushed back and they spun around so that Capable was now straddling Slit. She lay a hand on his muscular chest, using the other one to rub her clit. She moved in waves while he let his hands trace her body, grabbing her hips, pushing himself deeper into her. He felt her clench around him, igniting the explosion inside him. Capable let out high-pitched moans now, whimpering while Slit filled her up with deep strokes. She buried her fingernails deep into his chest when he pulled her down over him for the last time.

Capable hesitated, but then lay down upon him, an unfamiliar sensation flowing through her. When she lay her head under the jawline of the brute, she temporarily forgot the hole inside her.

“Good rutting”, Slit said.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Capable gets advice from the Dag

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... I kept thinking about crazy Capable, and I don't think I'm done with her. I'll see where she takes me. Please leave a comment if you have ideas for improvement, either grammatical or regarding content. :)

Capable headed to the baths. The water was relaxing and she tried to unravel her thoughts about the earlier events. She didn’t feel better or worse, but some of her inner turmoil had subsided. She heard footsteps. The Dag was apparently finished in the gardens for the day.

“How did it go?”, the blonde asked while getting undressed. She made a snorting kind of laugh when she read the answer in Capable’s face. The Dag had lost some of her ghostly pallor through the hours spent in the garden sun. She joined Capable in the water and closed her eyes as she leaned back against the walls of the pool.

"I found the dirt girls’ secret garden today, where they grow their... ‘forgiveness’", the Dag said with closed eyes and a thin smile. The weird dirt girls… Barren or otherwise unfit for breeding, these women tended to the produce. They mostly kept to themselves, but the Dag had gained their trust when she showed up with her bag of seeds.

"What is ‘forgiveness’? Some secret kind of fruit?", Capable wondered. 

"Nah, its a plant they dry and burn. The smoke makes them calm and uncaring. Maybe you should try that instead of war boy juice" Dag said with an amused smile and a sideways glance at her.

But Capable wasn’t looking for forgiveness, she wanted to remember. The women resumed their silence. “It wasn’t bad”, she said finally, as the water started to get cold, “but it wasn’t him.”

“What did you expect? Nothing ever will be”, the Dag replied with closed eyes. She sighed. "From what the dirt girls tell me, the war boys are all the same and none alike at the same time. They’re like flowers, you have to look quite close to see the differences. How unique can he have been?"

Capable thought of Nux the flower. A stark blue lily, blossoming with ease, swaying gently in the breeze. Then the thought of the flower of Slit popped into her head and she let out a laugh. "I’m gonna pluck them one by one until I find another one like him."

The Dag cringed and looked at her with a frown. "You sound like... Hrm. You know, if we aren’t things, then neither are the boys." 

"But I need to be filled with something!", Capable exclaimed scarcely hiding her desperation. She saw The Dag’s amused expression. "Oh, shut up, you know what I mean."

"I think you should fill your hands with work. Then your head will be to full for sadness to find a place." This was typical advice from The Dag, Capable thought. "I’m not becoming a green thumb", she said with a shiver resulting only partly from the cold water. The dirt girls were creepy. Everything seemed to move in slow motion around them.

The Dag pursed her lips. "Find something else then. Tend to the pups or learn healing from the organics. Help Furiosa with… whatever she’s doing. It doesn’t matter what it is, as long as it gets you away from yourself for a bit."

They emerged from the water, Capable wearing a pensive face while getting dressed. "I’m gonna be a rev head. I’m gonna breathe fire back into the wrecks of the fury road”, she said, half jokingly. The Dag laughed. "That’s perfect. A red head rev head!”

Capable smiled. This felt like hope.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Slit discovers that life has changed after the apocalypse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not super happy about this chapter, but it lays the groundwork for the next one.

The experience with the shiny didn’t make sense to Slit. There had been three big guards outside the room. When he left, one of them looked at him the way war boys looked at the wretched, with a mixture of pity and disgust. Slit had scurried away from the judgement and now walked familiar paths that were made strange by the lack of noise and movement. The few war boys he met had stern looks on their faces and mostly kept their eyes downcast. He searched for a high or a fight, but got nothing. 

Outside the mess hall he stopped an approaching boy with a slight build, a driver he recognised. “Mudd? What’s goin’ on? Where’s everyone?” 

“Where do you think? They burned. Maybe they’re in Valhalla. Who knows with the Immortan dead.” Mudd continued, “Lucky for you, a lot of drivers need new lancers now. You can finally get a trade up from the softie.”

Slit wasn’t going to let Mudd see how the words stung, but his face nevertheless contorted as if he tasted something sour. He tried to remind himself that he should be happy that Nux had reached Valhalla. He left Mudd with a grunt and resumed his walk towards nothing.

From a side passage he heard distant sounds of the doof guitar. The music was more whimsical than usual, and wrong, somehow. Of course that bag of crazy had survived. Slit kept a considerable distance to the dark entrance. Of course he wasn’t afraid, but he wasn’t suicidal either.

Eventually he ended up in the mech bay. The rev heads' sickly pallor bent over the engines accompanied by the gentle tinkering sounds made Slit uneasy. This had used to be a place in constant uproar, filled with war boys fighting, screaming, laughing while the rides were tended to perfection. For a while the stillness unsettled him, but when he saw Her before him, he felt chrome again.

The sight of her split Slit’s face into a moronic grin. Even dirty and dented, the rolling waves of her body managed to stir up sweet memories in him. The sheet metal was cool under his hands as he traced her smooth forms, silently losing himself in nostalgia. He got up to his lancers perch, feeling a bit stupid standing in the dark on the back of an unarmed ride. 

“So you survived, Slit”, came a voice out of the darkness. Slit turned around and saw Crank, a black thumb, making his way to a workbench by the wall. Before the end of the world, taunts would have flown between the boys, but Slit made no nasty reply as the other war boy turned his back to him, gathering tools from the racks. He was quite short, using a wrench to nudge tools from the higher shelves then catching them midair. 

Slit had never seen the awkward procedure before. “Where’s Lip?” he asked. Crank froze in the doorway on his way out of the room, still with his back to Slit. "Where’s Nux?" he replied and left Slit to his silence.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Capable is a pain in the ass, but Slit deserves it.

Slit deflated to a seated position. Haunted by Crank’s words, he felt no urge to return to his old bunk for the night. Once his and Nux’s private sanctuary, it would now be empty but for memories, shiny and mediocre alike. He wasn’t sure which ones he dreaded more. In his mind surfaced the image of two tiny war pups hiding under a ride, taking turns breathing from a tank. “Chroming from the inside” they had called it. The black thumb who had his guzzoline stolen had beaten that notion out of them without hesitation, Slit remembered with an inward smile. In the past, only pups had been desperate enough for drugs as mediocre as that, but the world had changed and he would settle for any numbness. There would be transfer tanks in the coupe, if Nux hadn’t dowsed himself in it all before he died, the eager fuck.

With a new found purpose, Slit swung himself from the perch to the left side of the car, where he was surprised to see a familiar shade of red through the window by the driver’s seat. He opened the front door and crouched down beside the shiny. She wore black cargo pants and slept in the curled up position of a war pup, holding her knees to her chest. Her torso was wrapped in strips of some dirty white fabric. Seing her there should make no sense but somehow she fit perfectly in the dirty car surrounded by the stench of death and nitro. He carefully felt the smooth skin of the exposed side of her neck, before running his fingers through that big red mess of hair. _What was it for?_

“Wake up shiny” he whispered, tilting his head to the side. She stirred but stayed asleep. He could probably trade her for better drugs than guzzoline, but for some reason the thought of war boys using her felt like a red hot branding iron to his chest. _She shouldn’t be here._

Slit had once carried an open vat of precious mother’s milk down a flight of stairs. It had been heavy and awkward, and the danger of spilling a single drop had made him terrified. Carrying the shiny through partly moonlit corridors reminded him of that, although he thankfully noted the lack of taunting war boys. She murmured as she slept, but he couldn’t make out the words. The nonsensical purring slightly subsided the chaos in his chest. 

Turning the last corner, the strange big dorm only metres away, Slit suddenly felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Two big war boys approached them, moving almost noiselessly despite their bulky bodies. Slit made a disgruntled face.

“She’s mine!” he snarled, but still they came towards him. He contemplated how to fight them off with the sleeping woman in his arms. He scanned the bare stone corridor for a weapon or escape route but found nothing. Grudgingly turning to run back the way he came, he found a third opposer. He groaned, realising they would definitely steal the shiny from him. They would use her and break her and there would be nothing left for him. And then Slit got angry, because for the first time he had his own prize and for once in his short miserable life it had been his turn not to share. 

“Find your own scraps! This one’s mine!” he tried in a last attempt to keep her to himself.

The woman sniggered over his shoulder. “It’s fine. He’s okay.” And as the guards stood down, he recognised them from before.  
“They’re my… protectors” she explained through a yawn. “They’re not dangerous, but they’re probably embarrassed I managed to sneak unnoticed from my room.” She gave the huge war boys a broad smile and snuck her tongue out between her teeth.

The guards said nothing, but in their eyes Slit read dishonour and violence. He had never seen war boys accept insults without retaliation before. When the shiny giggled and twisted herself from his arms, he felt as ridiculed as the guards. She slid her arm under his and he let himself be drawn into the room with her. Slit was more relieved than he would care to admit when the door separated them from the guards.

The last time he was in the room he’d been too… preoccupied to take note of his surroundings. Not that there was much to see. Just the soft breeder bunk and shelves after shelves with useless word burgers. Slit didn’t care for anything written other than his own name, but a war boy could get a good reward for them when returning from a raid. 

“Well you’re definitely the first war boy who’s saved me from an empty car” she interrupted his scan of the room, wearing a curious smile. She stood directly in front of him, tilting her head to meet his eye.

Slit turned to her and frowned. “What were you doing there? Easy way of getting hurt, that is.” She was annoying him, acting like this, like a war pup in need of a kicking. It was the same way she’d treated the guards, without respect. She looked at him in a way he had seen before.

One time Nux had asked him for a hex key only to be handed a wrench. Instead of sneering something at the lancer, he had given Slit a tender, amused look and a tiny peck on his scarred cheek. The shiny was giving him that same stinking fucking look now. The look that said Slit was stupid. He preferred her asleep.

“You’re afraid I’ll get hurt?” she asked with a pleased grin, closing the gap between them with two careful steps.

She was getting uncomfortably close to the truth. Slit wasn’t sure if he hated the thought of anyone hurting her or just the thought of someone else hurting her. Tired of her playing, he grabbed her jaw and held her fixed before him. She seemed delicate in his hand, fragile like an eggshell. He wondered if he could crush her jaw with his fist and if the guards outside would stop him if she screamed. He looked at her mouth, her nose, her useless hair and then let his eyes wander down over her body. The white fabric covering her breasts was thin, and he could see the shade of her nipples underneath. As his lay his left hand on her collarbone and tenderly let it slide towards her breasts, his right hand still held her in place. His knuckles were whitening and his grip must have been painful, but she made no sound other than her heavy breathing. 

Slit let his thumb stroke her nipple softly before flicking it, smiling at the sound of her gasp. He cupped her left breast in his hand and now he could feel the nipple through the fabric. He lifted his face and met her eyes. There was something there. Something he had seen before, in the face of someone else. He squinted slightly at her, figuring her out for a moment, and then he grinned his broadest lizard smile. In her look he saw a mixture of bestial determination and a hunger about to be satiated at long last. The look of a war boy requesting to be witnessed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I wrote the part about huffing guzzoline I couldn't get the image of Charlie from IASIP as a war pup out of my mind. It wasn't meant to be funny but there you go.
> 
> I anticipate much smut in the next chapter. It's about time Slit got to try out his split tongue.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some proper lovemaking. Slit is such a brat.

He pushed her backwards onto the soft bunk and straddled her with both her hands in one of his, fixed above her head. Even through the crude fabric of his pants, it was clear how the control fired him up.

He unbuttoned his pants. “I think you want me to hurt you. I think you long for violence to consume you and exhaust you” he said while unbuttoning his pants and sliding them down his hips, putting his cock directly in front of her face. 

“Eyes front, little shiny.” he said with a grin. He grabbed her head firmly and pushed his hip forward, burying his cock in her throat. Stopping for a brief moment, he enjoyed the display before him. Her big eyes were full of anticipation and already they were starting to fill with tears. With a deep breath he started to move slowly inside her.

“I think you want to to dissolve into the chaos of war and let the sickness you bear be devoured along with youraaahh-” She interrupted him by grabbing his ass and pushing him further into her throat for an even deeper outstroke. She twirled her tongue over the tip of his cock and he lost himself in the softness, the burning, the aching now fulfilled.

He leaned back and pushed his hand beneath the brim of her pants, feeling the wetness between her thighs. As he caressed her, her moans against his cock filled his cylinders with nitro. Suddenly Slit wasn’t fucking anymore, he was making a soft kind of war to this shiny breeder. He rode the wasteland and the curves of her body were the soft shapes on the horizon. Her strained breathing was the breeze on his skin and her mouth was the engine that took him forward. And then the sun was all of her as she ignited him. He yielded before her and rammed himself deeply into her throat a final time, fueling her with his fire. He shuddered gently as she swallowed, amazed surrender could feel so chrome.

He lay down beside her and stared blankly into the ceiling, devoid of every urge. She curled up against him, resting her head on the muscles of his arm. With her left hand, she absentmindedly traced patterns of nonsense over his chest while his breathing returned to normal. As he turned to look at her, she met him with a kiss and raised her hand to trace the scars on his cheek. Slit felt the taste of himself on her lips. _That part of you is hers now_ , he thought.

He reached down and unbuttoned her pants clumsily with one hand and together they slid them off her. To his touch, her thighs were smoother than anything he had felt before. His kissed her cheek and then let his mouth trail her jawline to her ear where he whispered hoarsely “I claim you, shiny.”

Awaiting no reply, he nibbled the soft skin of her neck while letting his hand wander upwards towards her wet pussy. Her body tensed as he slid his fingers gently over her wetness. 

He freed his arm from under her, rising to his knees and placing a possessive kiss on her mouth as he straddled her once more. His cock was hard again, or maybe it had never gone soft. The touched she ached for didn’t come, his fingers only danced playfully outside her folds. A tremor of anticipation brushed over Capable’s tense body. Slit smiled quizzically at the apparent plea in her eyes. Savouring the moment of control, he held his cock in his hand and rubbed it against her clit.

“Fang it war boy,” she snarled in response. The desperation in her voice was enough to drain the last of Slit’s self-preservation. He plunged into her forcibly, immersing in the hot softness. She had already been close to climax, feverishly turned on by the raw savage, but when he filled her up she knew she couldn’t keep her orgasm at bay for long. She wrapped her legs around his waist and cried “Deeper, harder, more!” 

Cupping her ass and lifting it towards him, he crashed deeper into her with each subsequent stroke. She cramped around his cock as the orgasm hit her, pulling him with her over the edge. 

He fell down beside her exhausted, encapsuling her in his arms while catching his breath. She stroked the muscles of his chest in silent adoration as he planted a kiss on her forehead.

“I don’t think I’m even a half life anymore, the way you run me dry,” Slit said. Capable giggled softly, snuggling into the safety of his embrace. Stillness fell and she had almost fallen asleep when Slit whispered “Don’t sneak out alone again little shiny.”

She raised her gaze to tease him for his tenderness, but the vulnerable look on his face softened her intent.

“I might be shiny” she said instead. “But my name is Capable.” And together they drifted off to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: Slit didn't use his lizard tongue, and I am very disappointed. 
> 
> Outstroke describes the piston moving towards the crankshaft, so I wasn't sure how to use the engine metaphors in a sexual context. 
> 
> Disclaimer: this is not a car manual. Please do not use as such.


	6. Chapter 6

Capable awoke to a new way of life where each day repeated the cycle of work and sleep. The artificial lighting of the workshop hindered any natural pauses to the activities, so she simply worked until the fatigue quivered her hands, forcing her to stop.

At night she sailed atop the imagery of the workshop, drifting into a calm blackness without nightmares. The dreams she had consisted of patterns of bolts and oil and rusty metal repeating indefinitily. One day she found the black dirt had dug itself too deeply into her callused hands to be scrubbed off. She let it be. 

She leaned down, rummaging through a pile of scrap scavenged from the wastelands. She wasn’t the first to rifle through it, but definitely one of the last. Whatever parts that still hadn’t been claimed would need adjusting before they could be used. She sat on the floor, leaned against the work bench and ran her fingers over the splined hub of a discarded clutch plate. It was obvious why it hand’t been claimed before, the pattern was far too worn down to fit a spline shaft.

“You’re definitely not a breeder anymore. I didn’t even see you in this filth.” The Dag appeared in the door way, even covered in the dirt of the gardens somehow eerily clean in comparison to the workshop. Her pregnancy had started to show properly and as she sat down next to Capable it was not without trouble. 

“Boys, there is one entrance to this room. We promise not to kill one another if you leave us alone for a moment.” Her two body guards looked at each other and did as she said.

“I only have these two now that Grumpy’s stuck in the hands of the organic, but still they manage to be in the way all the time.” 

“You named them?” Capable asked with a bemused smile.

“Yeah, I named all three of them. Happy, Sleepy and Grumpy. Talking to them keeps me sane while I’m weeding,” The Dag explained carelessly.

Capable laughed at her. “But they never talk! How do you even tell them apart?” 

“They do have characteristics. And talking to them is therapeutic, its like tossing my worries into a sand dune,” The Dag said with a shrug of her shoulders. Leaning her head against the cool wall, she let out a big yawn. “I think Furiosa has sharpened their directives,” she continued “‘cause they didn’t use to clomp about the greens with me before. As if I could escape from there.” The Dag pulled an orange from a crude sling bag that hung over her shoulder. "But I can tell it bothers them getting dirt in their pretty white paint, and that makes it worth it."

Capable looked at her pleased smile, wondered what reward the guards recieved for their service, and if it could compensate withstanding the whims of the Dag.

“But you’ve slipped out from under the constant watch.” The Dag pursed her lips and arched an eyebrow at her. When Capable silently ignored the invitation to elaborate she gave up. “I haven’t seen Toast for… I think it’s thirty days now,” she said while peeling the orange, taking care to return the peel into the bag.

“Furiosa knows where she is,” Capable replied without worry.

“You wanna ask her? Cause I kind of wish I did too” The Dag dryly, handing Capable half of the orange. 

“You ask her,” she mumbled sourly, accepting the fruit. The albedo was stained black at the touch of her hands.

“Anything useful in the pile?” called a war boy from the entrance of the workshop. He wore welding goggles on his forehead and the white of his arms was mixed with an oily black.

“I found a clutch plate that looks almost ok. The splines are all worn down but it might fit the transmission over there with some work,” she said and indicated a heap of metal in the far corner of the shop. Glancing to the war boy, she hoped she had used the terms correctly. He gave the tiniest nod, little more than a slow blink, but it was an acknowledgement of her work and as such enough to make her warm inside.

The war boy left and Capable reverted her attention back to the Dag who had watched the exchange in silent awe. “How did you make them work with you? Did Furiosa force them?”

Capable let out a short, bitter laugh. “No, it was that war boy. Nux’s friend. Slit. He took me down here and told Crank to help me.” She nodded at the empty door opening. “He didn’t want to at first but now he’s accepted me, as far as that’s possible. Some of the other have, as well. The mech bay has plenty of empty shops after the war. I don’t bother anyone who doesn’t want to be bothered.“ 

“That was Crank? And he's accepted you?”

Capable laughed. “Yeah, maybe my black thumbs aren’t as cozy as your dirt girls, but there’s a cold truth to the workshops. An engine doesn’t lie, it either runs or it doesn’t.”

“So you fix up the rides and play with the boys, is that how you heal? Having one for breeding every night?” asked the Dag. She held out her hand.

Capable dutifully spit out the orange seeds and handed them over. She brushed off the fruit juice on her pants as her friend got up laboriously from beside her. Then she shrugged. “Nah, that was how I survived. This is how I live,” she said and tapped the transmission lightly with her hand. “I mean, I don’t do the most complicated work, but I put my hands to use and if I hadn’t done it, one of the boys would’ve had to. I have a function here. I have worth.” She gave the Dag a content smile.

The Dag mirrored the smile and scanned the workshop, semingly appraising it. Then she turned back to Capable with a jerky movement typical of her. “I want the peel and seeds back. Keep your engine filth off them.” She handed her an orange wrapped in a ragged cloth. “Maybe you can find a measure of peace here even without your pretty boy,” she said with a wry smile, but not unkindly. Capable nodded and raised the orange in silent thanks.

"Onward Happy! Onward Sleepy!" sounded the call from the Dag to her guardians. Capable returned to her work and recollected how she’d gotten rid of her own body guards. She had sought out Furiosa for a discussion, but did not find what she set out for. There were no response in that chilling stare, no flicker of understanding when she described the desire to be a subject rather than an object. 

“The war boys know better than to touch us, we don’t need that kind of protection anymore,” Capable had explained.

“Yes, I heard you’ve been getting to know them. I’ve known them longer. They’re not all like your Nux.” Furiosa's calm, patronising manner pulled Capable to anger.

“No, but some of them might be! Not everyone is purged of good intent!” Capable knew she had lost as soon as she raised her voice, but she refused to believe the war boys she had gotten to know were all rotten. “After the war there is peace and then the warrior’s duty is to step back.”

Furiosa tilted her head slightly before she spoke again.“If you die then it was all for nothing.”

“No, if we’re still captives then it was all for nothing. That would make it all a trip to the salt flats and back to the same spot we set out from. For all your noble intent, the way we’re kept bear the mark of your predecessor, Imperator.” She uttered the last word like a hiss, the former honorific now turned insult. 

With those words the image of her saviour was undone and it was clear to Capable that to Furiosa the wives had been no more than a means to an end. Maybe in that moment Furiosa understood it as well. They interchanged no more insults, but heard each other more clearly in their respective silences. In the end, Furiosa had lifted her hand of protection. Not out of respect, it was apparent, but out of contempt.

The sound of footsteps jerked Capable out of the reminiscence, and into her shop came Vermat. She groaned inwardly. The world hadn’t gotten mad or fallen to pieces, she thought, it had just caught up with him. He was scrawny for a war boy, and wore no deliberate scarring. His sloppily applied body paint did little to conceal the markings of war underneath, however. Even the other war boys avoided him as best they could, but in the winding tunnel systems of the Citadel, he too served a purpose. “He has a sickness, but it’s not in the lungs or flesh,” Crank had summarized the strange caretaker. “He lets nothing go to waste.” Despite this, Capable wasn’t really afraid of him. For all his creepiness, he seemed mostly harmless. 

“I have nothing for you Vermat. I’m still going through this pile.” 

He nodded and looked at her thoughtfully. “If you let me cut your hair I could give you good rope. Hard to come by, good rope.” There were nothing deliberately malicious in his offer. It was simply unpleasant. 

“Scram, Vermat!” came then the voice of Slit, entering the shop. Vermat nodded at them both eagerly and left with a mood seemingly unaffected.

Slit watched him leave. "I’ve never seen him angry or violent. He's never ever made war, only ever stays here with the rides. But don’t trust him." He turned to Capable and revealed two low, cylinder shaped objects in his hands.“I thought you might use these for the ride. I traded… for them.”

The lie was so obvious Capable had to smile at him. But she had an idea who Slit had stolen the bearings from, since she had given them to Crank the day before. They didn’t fit the transmission but he couldn’t know that yet. He had become so sweet. She hadn’t expected that.

She cupped his hands in hers. “Let's go see if they fit.”


	7. Chapter 7

In a separate workshop, the disrepair of Nux’s car bore silent witness of the loss of its keeper. Capable replaced the missing parts as best she could, but still its insides were too scavenged for it to run. She could not bring Nux back but she would make sure this representation of him lived on. The transmission had been flooded with sand and the machinery would not come back to life without new bearings. Now it stood above an open vat, around which a halo of discarded tools told a tale of frustration. For the look of it, Capable compared the new bearings to the ones already mounted before tossing them into a junk pile in a dark corner of the workshop.

“They didn’t fit? Can’t you fix it some other way?” Slit asked. When she saw the expression on his face, she immediately regretted discarding the parts so carelessly. She tried an encouraging smile.

“It’ll run,” she said with confidence she wasn’t sure she had. She picked up a can from one of the workbenches. “But I can’t find new ones that fit. There’s nothing to do but try to get rid of the sand,” she sighed. She soaked the transmission with kerosene but stayed in place, empty of wants and needs, for a short moment simply done with the task at hand. Slit embraced her from behind, draping his arms over her shoulders. She clasped her hands over his and a stillness fell over the workshop, a calm none of them were used to. They watched in silence as the solvent trailed its way through the transmission. Before long, there were sounds of drops, and the tranquility of the moment was lost. Capable turned to face him, her lost boy, monstrous puppy, tender brute. Her point of stability.

“I want to show you something.”

%%%%%%%%

In the gardens the movements of the dirt girls mimicked those of the black thumbs below, only here there were no sounds of cutting tools. Instead there were distant laughter in the sunlight and the occasional trail of smoke rising into the air. The greens divided the dirt covered expanse into secluded sections, but through them Capable saw glimpses of the girls, and their songs carried through the vegetation. Tree tinkerers, she thought, keeping their machines running like the boys below.

She took Slit's hand and quickly slipped into the green maze. In their pursuit of solitude, it was best to keep the war boy away from the girls’ curious gazes. She knew of one of the dirt girls’ smoke spots, and its position so close to the stairs into the citadel meant it was usually deserted. The girls prized their privacy, and usually stayed further down the dirt tracks.

The spot was little more than a vaguely circular opening at the end of the path, just large enough for three or four people to lounge comfortably. Capable sat down in the dirt, pulling Slit down next to her. When he sat down, she reflected on the calmness in him. He was no longer a loaded gun set aside in wait of a target. He leaned back into the dirt and rested his head in his hands, radiating calmness. His taunting and aggressive facade was slipping and Capable could catch glimpses of the boy beneath. Overhead, branches of thriving plants spread their shoots, nearly hiding Capable’s view of the sky. The foliage made her feel safe, as if nothing bad would happen in the vicinity of growing things.

“Do you miss him?” she asked him. They hadn't talked about Nux, but the question just sort of slipped out before she could stop it.

“Nah, but I kind of wish I could make war with him again, talk to him, work our ride. That he was still around,” Slit replied.

She didn’t say anything, but squinted upwards through the foliage and wondered if Slit knew the meaning of missing someone. She decided it wasn’t her place to label his grief and went for her pocket and retrieved the orange there. The stillness of the secluded spot made the task of peeling the fruit almost ritualistic. She piled the peel by her boot, putting the albedo in the bowl like structure it formed. A monument over the ritual she thought. She turned to Slit, searching for an acknowledgement of the serenity of the moment. But the boy was lost in thoughts of his own, staring blankly into the weave of branches above.

“Hey...” she said softly and reached out to him, carefully stroking his upper arm to get his attention. At first he said nothing, and she would have thought he didn’t notice her if he hadn’t squinted his eyes and pursed his lips.

“I hope he believed when he died. That the lies of the Immortan still were truths to him and that the golden gates of Valhalla manifested as he burned. Because every time I think of him being crushed beneath the war rig I get this…” Slit silenced, and sat up into a crumpled position, resting his head on his knees. He continued with closed eyes:

“If I die today I don’t know where I would go. The war is gone and I don’t think the gates of Valhalla will open for me. I have no function in life and no destination in death. What is a war boy without war?” he said, opened his eyes and turned to her as if demanding an answer.

With the orange still in her hand, she didn’t know how to react to his despair. Her mind drew blank and without thinking she handed him half of the fruit. He looked at it, turning it over a couple of times. Then he faced her in a faint smile, not his great big lizard smile, but a smile nonetheless.

%%%%%%%%

Capable walked the gardens aimlessly, searching for the Dag but not in a hurry to find her. Instead, the rows and rows of growth became a backdrop to her analysis of Slit’s words. He was lost, so lost. And he couldn’t be alone in that, a lot of war boys must have been robbed of their religion and sense of direction when the Immortan died. He had left to patrol the surroundings of the Citadel, apparently one of the few outlets for the war boys’ violent nature still available to them.

She turned a corner and saw that the dirt girls were carefully brushing feathers against the flowers that grew there. Sometimes, they’re just as crazy as the war boys, only calmer, she thought.

The Dag sat surrounded by a group of girls when Capable found her. The sun had darkened her complexion and now it stood in stark contrast to her white-blonde hair. The smoke lay thick and the group were giggling conspiratorially. 

“And there she is! We were just discussing your visit. But where's your friend?”

Capable had no patience for this. She gave the Dag a look that said as much. She held out her palm with the peels from the orange.

“I came to return these. Would you mind showing me the way out now? This place is a labyrinth.”

“Oh, all right then,” said the Dag when she saw her friend’s expression. She got up with help from the girls beside her, “I've nearly taken root here anyway.”

Capable asked about the practice of the feathers and the flowers that she had seen. The Dag only shrugged and said, “I actually don’t know half of how stuff works up here, I mostly just make sure the girls get what they need by speaking for them downstairs. There is nothing I can teach them about growing.” She continued, “the first time I came up here, I held the Keeper’s bag to my tits like some sort of protection. Cassia, one of the girls in the circle back there,” she said and nodded her head back the way they had come, “she pried and coaxed me to let go of it. When she finally succeeded and saw what was inside she fell into tears. To me it was a memory of the old lady and a symbol of hope, but the girls used it to feed the Citadel."

Capable looked at hear with wrinkled brow. “But without you they wouldn’t have the seeds to begin with. And without you no one would speak for them downstairs.”

“But anyone could do that, really. I'm only special because everyone thinks we’re special! You know, apparently those poor fucks get nothing for their guard duty,” she said and jerked her head to the side. Capable looked that way and to her surprise saw the Dag’s body guards, keeping their distance on the other side of a row of high plants. The Dag continued, “It’s a kind of honorary task, guarding the widows of the Immortan. We are revered as the living vessels of the Immortan’s divinity.” 

“Well, to be fair, you are an actual vessel for his offspring,” Capable said before she could help herself.

“Hah, I guess that’s true,” the Dag said with an amused smile. She patted her stomach absent-mindedly. They passed yet another row of greens and then they were back at the stairs.

“I saw Furiosa yesterday. I asked her about Toast and she knows nothing,” the Dag said. She looked concerned.

“Or she’s lying,” Capable said, not quite believing how gullible her friend was in regards to their matriarch.

The Dag looked at her with disbelief and countered, “for all her faults, our safety is one of the things she actually handles well. Don’t take your anger on the world out on her, she doesn't deserve all that.” 

Capable said nothing. The mere mention of Furiosa’s name was enough to put a knot of anger and nausea in the pit of her stomach. 

“Toast got rid of her keepers too," the Dag continued. Her guards had caught up with them and she smacked the closest one playfully on the chest. "If she hadn’t I wouldn’t worry about her. She's so whimsical. And as one of the incarnations of the Citadel’s dead god-man-creature she’ll probably get what she wants. I don’t mind talking to Furiosa from time to time, but I really don’t want to go downstairs and look for Toast. I feel alright up here, but down there are only shadows and war boys.”

Capable thought the words uncharacteristic of the Dag, but then again, she thought, she’s grown accustomed to this place just as I’ve done to the workshops. The Dag gave her a strange look, and Capable realised only after a moment that she was trying to plead with her.

“Oh stop that. You look like the baby's coming. I’ll do what I can. But she’s fine, you know. Nothing ever gets to her.”


End file.
